Posts: 1 to 25 of 37

Topic: Playerbase

So I've owned this game for maybe 2 years or more. The first time I played. I got through the tutorial and I understand the type of game it was, similar to eve. It has grinding, marketing, player corporations, gamma islands where you control land and resources with bases, crafting system, bla bla bla.

But as a new player who is playing the game when its old. I see in general chat only 14~ people. I browse the other chat channels and its maybe 10 in another, 5 in another, a few outlying 1's. And I could assume some players are in multiple chat channels which would mean the sum of players is less. So the population on the game would appear to be less than 30.

So how many people are really online in this game?

And I feel if you want more people on, shouldn't you people not in general chat come join it?My brother started playing this and that's why I'm back to check this game out again.He says everyone is hiding.

Are you all hiding and not in general chat? Its a real turn away to new players looking for a healthy community in a game that is about player interaction.

Re: Playerbase

Yeah you raise a valid point, some people don't join general chat for valid reasons. For as long as I have been playing people have asked the devs for a simple counter somewhere to show how many are online. Maybe in the bottom right or something, but I think they just always have more important stuff to work on.

Re: Playerbase

Pokuru wrote:

So I've owned this game for maybe 2 years or more. The first time I played. I got through the tutorial and I understand the type of game it was, similar to eve. It has grinding, marketing, player corporations, gamma islands where you control land and resources with bases, crafting system, bla bla bla.

But as a new player who is playing the game when its old. I see in general chat only 14~ people. I browse the other chat channels and its maybe 10 in another, 5 in another, a few outlying 1's. And I could assume some players are in multiple chat channels which would mean the sum of players is less. So the population on the game would appear to be less than 30.

So how many people are really online in this game?

And I feel if you want more people on, shouldn't you people not in general chat come join it?My brother started playing this and that's why I'm back to check this game out again.He says everyone is hiding.

Are you all hiding and not in general chat? Its a real turn away to new players looking for a healthy community in a game that is about player interaction.

Re: Playerbase

It used to prominently displayed like 4 years ago. I thought it had completely been removed but stumbled across it on accident a month or so ago looking through some of my own old posts for something.

Let me tell a quick story about this though, and I have to say it's really disappointing to me. I saw a new guy (or at least character) log in to gen chat last night ... he asked "on a scale of 1 to 10 how dead is this game?" Someone I know and like who happened to be on said "10" and the new guy immediately went offline. I was in the middle of trying to find that link to show the so they could make up their own mind and I wasn't quick enough.

There seems to be a sizable number of people who only want to know what the population is so they can not "waste their time" with a "dead game" and just move on without even giving it a chance. But if everyone did that it would never have even made it out of Beta (in some ways it arguably hasn't) and on to Steam in the first place.

It's probably true that anyone with that little interest, self sufficiency, attention span, and patience wouldn't have lasted long anyway but it's still sad. The devs have pretty systematically over a long period of time made it next to impossible to stay fully solo 100% of the time and still have any fun at all. It basically forces you to join a corp to thrive (survival is easy - don't go outside Alpha) and a lot of people who play MMOs, probably the majority, if not than a large minority, play solo.

Gekko wrote:

A couple of days ago i've seen 7-10 agents(alts) near the alpha terminal, they were not in gen chat.

Yes, it's scares some people off, not only the new ones.

I've seen a number that look scripted where 6+ similar names log in at the exact same time to the second. I see a lot of people log in and immediately out again just to keep the EP coming without actively playing at all. I wonder if the graphs count those or if they have to be logged in for a certain amount or time or what.

Re: Playerbase

Crepitus wrote:

I've seen a number that look scripted where 6+ similar names log in at the exact same time to the second. I see a lot of people log in and immediately out again just to keep the EP coming without actively playing at all. I wonder if the graphs count those or if they have to be logged in for a certain amount or time or what.

That graph shows the number of logged agent over time scale. So there is no difference in scale between 10 agents beeing logged in 24h or if every second 1 agent logs in, stays 10 seconds and log out but nobody stays longer. In both cases the shown population would be 10 over time while in fact it would need 60x60x24=86,400 different agents loggin in each day for the second.

I requested long ago, tht you should get EP only for doing something active in game for at least once a week.It is very easy to see, that we have several hundred player not beeing active in game but just getting Ep at least once a week

Re: Playerbase

I say make gen chat required so there is no illusion about it, but of course then the intel game of who is on and who isn't is eliminated. I know its a common pvp tactic but let's be honest, we all see them coming anyway, nothing is a surprise anymore.

If it helps new players find a community to be a part of, and stick around, then it should happen.What do you guys think?

Re: Playerbase

logicalNegation wrote:

I say make gen chat required so there is no illusion about it, but of course then the intel game of who is on and who isn't is eliminated. I know its a common pvp tactic but let's be honest, we all see them coming anyway, nothing is a surprise anymore.

If it helps new players find a community to be a part of, and stick around, then it should happen.What do you guys think?

Re: Playerbase

Gekko wrote:

logicalNegation wrote:

I say make gen chat required so there is no illusion about it, but of course then the intel game of who is on and who isn't is eliminated. I know its a common pvp tactic but let's be honest, we all see them coming anyway, nothing is a surprise anymore.

If it helps new players find a community to be a part of, and stick around, then it should happen.What do you guys think?

"Anonymous" checkbox?

too hard to code. DEVs wanted to do that with outpost/terminal chat, but couldn't ever implement it.

somehow they managed to implement that terrain-chat that works without avatars, but for a general chat with anonymous option, they would need to implement more complicated stuff that prevent exploits like the existing ones, that allow you to check if someone is online or not.

Re: Playerbase

logicalNegation wrote:

I say make gen chat required so there is no illusion about it, but of course then the intel game of who is on and who isn't is eliminated. I know its a common pvp tactic but let's be honest, we all see them coming anyway, nothing is a surprise anymore.

If it helps new players find a community to be a part of, and stick around, then it should happen.What do you guys think?

Do Not Want. Gives away spies far to easily

I also hate flashing windows. Call it OCD - I feel compelled to click on them.

Re: Playerbase

Crepitus wrote:

logicalNegation wrote:

I say make gen chat required so there is no illusion about it, but of course then the intel game of who is on and who isn't is eliminated. I know its a common pvp tactic but let's be honest, we all see them coming anyway, nothing is a surprise anymore.

If it helps new players find a community to be a part of, and stick around, then it should happen.What do you guys think?

Do Not Want. Gives away spies far to easily =)

I also hate flashing windows. Call it OCD - I feel compelled to click on them.

You are so bad. Let's not do mechanics changes that might benefit the whole game because of spies when there are twenty people playing

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Playerbase

Jita wrote:

Crepitus wrote:

logicalNegation wrote:

I say make gen chat required so there is no illusion about it, but of course then the intel game of who is on and who isn't is eliminated. I know its a common pvp tactic but let's be honest, we all see them coming anyway, nothing is a surprise anymore.

If it helps new players find a community to be a part of, and stick around, then it should happen.What do you guys think?

Do Not Want. Gives away spies far to easily

I also hate flashing windows. Call it OCD - I feel compelled to click on them.

You are so bad. Let's not do mechanics changes that might benefit the whole game because of spies when there are twenty people playing

Re: Playerbase

Crepitus wrote:

Pokuru wrote:

So I've owned this game for maybe 2 years or more. The first time I played. I got through the tutorial and I understand the type of game it was, similar to eve. It has grinding, marketing, player corporations, gamma islands where you control land and resources with bases, crafting system, bla bla bla.

But as a new player who is playing the game when its old. I see in general chat only 14~ people. I browse the other chat channels and its maybe 10 in another, 5 in another, a few outlying 1's. And I could assume some players are in multiple chat channels which would mean the sum of players is less. So the population on the game would appear to be less than 30.

So how many people are really online in this game?

And I feel if you want more people on, shouldn't you people not in general chat come join it?My brother started playing this and that's why I'm back to check this game out again.He says everyone is hiding.

Are you all hiding and not in general chat? Its a real turn away to new players looking for a healthy community in a game that is about player interaction.

Re: Playerbase

Obi Wan Kenobi wrote:

Crepitus wrote:

Pokuru wrote:

So I've owned this game for maybe 2 years or more. The first time I played. I got through the tutorial and I understand the type of game it was, similar to eve. It has grinding, marketing, player corporations, gamma islands where you control land and resources with bases, crafting system, bla bla bla.

But as a new player who is playing the game when its old. I see in general chat only 14~ people. I browse the other chat channels and its maybe 10 in another, 5 in another, a few outlying 1's. And I could assume some players are in multiple chat channels which would mean the sum of players is less. So the population on the game would appear to be less than 30.

So how many people are really online in this game?

And I feel if you want more people on, shouldn't you people not in general chat come join it?My brother started playing this and that's why I'm back to check this game out again.He says everyone is hiding.

Are you all hiding and not in general chat? Its a real turn away to new players looking for a healthy community in a game that is about player interaction.

Re: Playerbase

i agree. watching this game die is just sad but i also have a feeling the devs arent listening to the community (of what its left at least)

Post beta they never really did. Mostly this is because the community don't really have a clue. There are still people in game who think the beat way for a dead game to go is more hardcore.

Sadly the dev ideas have not been successful either, although I'm of the opinion that is more an implementation problem rather than an idea problem. The ideas and code are usually fine, its their balancing and implementation that's horrific.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Playerbase

Hiding from GC is tactic00l advantage. I even remember some people joining other language channels just to spy who is online. It's funny what kind of things people do to win a funny little pvp fight that has absolutley no meaning in a dead game.